Edwin Lawrence Miller is engaged in the practice of law in Seneca, and is also interested in agricultural pursuits in the county. He is a native of North Carolina, his birth having occurred in Kinston, Lenoir county, on May 25, 1863. He is a son of Dr. A. R. and Delia M. (Henry) Miller. The Miller family are of German-Swiss lineage, whose representatives sailed for America in 1710, being pioneer settlers in North Carolina. A settlement was made at the junction of the Neuse and Trent rivers, and the town was called New Berne. The colony experienced the rigors of those times, and came near being annihilated in the Indian uprising in eastern North Carolina in 1711. Since that time the Miller family have been connected with the business interests of the Old North state. The father of our subject was born in North Carolina, May 8, 1830, and for many years devoted his energies to the work of his profession -- dentistry. He married Miss Henry, a native of Vermont, who died in Kinston, North Carolina in 1884. She had three brothers in the Union army, and her husband and his three brothers were in the Confederate army. The Henry family were of English lineage, being founded in America in 1634 by ancestors who settled in Massachusetts. Mr. Miller has two sisters living, Mrs. George S. Luce, of Wisconsin, and Mrs. H. O. Hyatt, at the old home in North Carolina. E. L. Miller acquired his preliminary education in the private schools of his native town, and subsequently pursued his studies one year in the Boston University Law School, of Massachusetts.

After leaving that place he matriculated in Columbia College, of New York city, and prepared for the bar by a course in the law department, from which he was graduated in 1888. Soon afterward he came to Seneca, Kansas, and opened a law office. Here, in connection with his chosen profession, he has become interested in farm lands as an investment, and devotes much thought to agriculture. He is now the owner of considerable valuable property, including several fine farms in Nemaha county. In 1900 he established the Rural Kansan. He still carries on his law practice, and is well versed in the principles of jurisprudence. His arguments are logical and forceful. His campaign work, both speech-making and as a worker and adviser, has placed him among the influential Democrats of Kansas.

On January 27, 1892, Mr. Miller was united in marriage with Miss Mary E. Ball, of Greensboro, North Carolina, daughter of Rev. J. R. Ball, a Methodist Protestant minister, who was a descendant of the brother of Mary Ball, themother of George Washington. They have three children living: Edwin Lawrence, Delia Maria and Thomas Richard Roscoe. In his political views Mr. Miller is a stalwart Democrat. He has served as city attorney and member of the city council, and was a candidate of the party for state senator in 1896. The district was hopelessly Republican, but Mr. Miller failed by less than two hundred of an election, a smaller majority than had ever before been registered against a Democrat in the district. He was a contestant in the Democratic convention for the nomination for congress in the first Kansas district in 1900, but was defeated by ex-Governor George W. Glick, who received the nomination after a close, but friendly, contest.

Mr. Miller is a man of genial manner and unfailing courtesy, and in the community where he resides enjoys the warm friendship of a large circle of acquaintances, and is known for his energy in building and improving the county and for his enterprise generally as a useful citizen.